Straws in the Wind - Part 247

From the Brown Daily Herald: Brown is working with global consulting firm Teneo for its two external security assessments following the Dec. 13 shooting... According to the announcement, the reviews are set to continue throughout the semester, after which “key outcomes” will be shared with the Brown community and the public. The first assessment is an after-action review, which will assess campus safety before, during and after the shooting. The second assessment is a comprehensive campus safety and security assessment, which will look into Brown’s security practices and infrastructure. 

When University President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 first announced the security assessments Dec. 22, the external organization that would be carrying out the reviews had not yet been announced, but that the Brown Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, would be overseeing the reviews. The two co-leads of Teneo’s review team for their work with Brown are Courtney Adante and Bill Bratton.Adante is the president of Teneo’s security risk advisory team, and she has a master’s degree in cybersecurity risk and strategy from New York University, according to Teneo’s website. Bratton is the executive chairman of risk advisory at Teneo, and he formerly served as commissioner of the New York and Boston Police Departments and chief of the Los Angeles Police Department...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/01/consulting-firm-teneo-to-assist-with-post-shooting-security-reviews.

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From Inside Higher Ed: Faculty members in the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Science were asked to sign a three-page memo pledging not to “indoctrinate” their students, the Houston Chronicle reported. In a November email to faculty, Houston president Renu Khator wrote that the university’s responsibility is to “give [students] the ability to form their own opinions, not to force a particular one on them. Our guiding principle is to teach them, not to indoctrinate them.” The recent memo, sent by college dean Daniel O’Connor, asks faculty to “document compliance” with Khator’s note. It’s a way to ensure all faculty members are compliant with Texas’s Senate Bill 37, O’Conner told associate English professor María González in a meeting. The law mandates regular reviews of core undergraduate curriculum but does not address indoctrination or what material can or cannot be taught.

By Feb. 10, faculty must signal their agreement with the following five statements: “A primary purpose of higher education is to enhance critical thinking;” “Our responsibility is to give students the ability to form their own opinions, not to indoctrinate them;” “I understand the definition and attributes of critical thinking;” “I design my courses and course materials to be consistent with the definition and attributes of critical thinking;” and “I use methods of instruction that are intended to enhance students’ critical thinking.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/02/06/houston-faculty-must-pledge-not-indoctrinate-students.

Straws in the Wind - Part 149

From Inside Higher Ed: The University of Houston has scrapped a previously required class that teaches master of social work students about societal power imbalances, racial prejudice and social justice. The decision was made without any faculty input, sources told Inside Higher Ed... “As part of upcoming changes to the curriculum and degree plan, this course will not be offered at this time,” the officials wrote. “We understand that this adjustment may raise questions, and we want to assure you that it will not affect any student’s ability to successfully progress through the MSW program or meet graduation requirements on time.”

The email did not include further explanation for why the course would be cut or what the upcoming changes to the curriculum would be, and spokespeople for the University of Houston didn’t share any information that wasn’t already included in that email. The move fits with recent actions by every public university system in Texas to review, flag or censor course content related to gender identity and race. Earlier this month, the University of Houston said officials were completing a review of general education courses in compliance with Texas Senate Bill 37, which took effect this fall. The bill requires all public institutions to review general education curricula every five years, though the first reviews are not due until 2027...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/curriculum/2025/10/23/university-houston-cancels-oppression-justice-course.

Straws in the Wind - Part 130

From Inside Higher Ed: ...The University of Texas system is reviewing all courses on gender identity to “ensure compliance and alignment with applicable law and state and federal guidance, and to make sure any courses that are taught on a U.T. campus are aligned with the direction and priorities of the Board of Regents,” according to a statement from the system. The review will be discussed at the Board of Regents meeting in November. System leaders at several public institutions have cited Texas House Bill 229, President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order and a Jan. 30 letter from Gov. Greg Abbott that said, “All Texas agencies must ensure that agency rules, internal policies, employment practices, and other actions comply with the law and the biological reality that there are only two sexes—male and female.” Yet no current federal or state laws prohibit public university professors from teaching about transgender identity...

Hundreds of American colleges and universities are now requiring their faculty to upload syllabi to Simple Syllabus, a third-party platform that offers uniform syllabus templates and easy editing; it also allows faculty to embed syllabi into campus learning management systems. According to the company’s website, more than 500 colleges and universities currently use the platform. Institutions may limit who can view the syllabi—for example, Clemson University requires users to log in with university credentials. But other institutions—including the University of Houston, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin—allow the general public to view their Simple Syllabus pages. This may be in part due to Texas House Bill 2504, a 15-year-old law that requires public institutions to provide publicly accessible syllabi that include major assignments and exams, required or recommended readings, and a general description of lecture or discussion topics...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/curriculum/2025/10/09/texas-systems-review-course-descriptions-syllabi.

Straws in the Wind - Part 81

From Inside Higher Ed: The University of Chicago’s Arts and Humanities Division is reducing how many new Ph.D. students it admits for the 2026–27 academic year across about half of its departments and completely halting Ph.D. admissions elsewhere. Multiple language programs are among those affected... Arts and Humanities dean Deborah Nelson told faculty, staff and Ph.D. students, “We will accept a smaller overall Ph.D. cohort across seven departments: Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Music (composition), and Philosophy.” The university didn’t tell Inside Higher Ed how many fewer Ph.D. students would be accepted across those departments. “Other departments will pause admissions,” Nelson wrote.

Andrew Ollett, an associate professor of South Asian languages and civilizations, said that means no new Ph.D. students for these departments: classics, comparative literature, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Romance languages and literatures, Slavic languages and literatures, and South Asian languages and civilizations, plus the ethnomusicology and history and theory of music programs in the music department. While the university didn’t provide an interview or respond to multiple written questions, a spokesperson did point out that the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice is also pausing Ph.D. admissions, while the Harris School of Public Policy is pausing admissions for the Harris Ph.D., the political economy Ph.D. and the master of arts in public policy with certificate in research methods...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/academic-programs/2025/08/14/uchicago-freezing-phd-admissions-multiple-programs.

From Inside Higher Ed: The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted... to disband the system’s long-standing faculty senates in compliance with Senate Bill 37, the sweeping Texas higher education law that gives university boards and presidents control over faculty governing bodies. The UT board also voted... to create faculty advisory groups, which will “perform the work of faculty governance bodies”—such as reviewing degree requirements, suggesting curricular changes, coordinating campus events and revising the faculty handbook—while keeping all decision-making power in the hands of the administration. The University of Houston system Board of Regents did the same..., voting to create faculty councils that will “provide structured, meaningful avenues for faculty to help shape academic priorities, strengthen excellence and contribute to decisions that guide our future,” a university spokesperson said in a statement.

But the groups won’t give the faculty independent representation or any real power. In accordance with SB 37, the board bylaws now state, “a faculty council is advisory only and may not be delegated the final decision-making authority on any matter.”

...The president will also choose the presiding officer, associate presiding officer and secretary for each group. Appointees may serve for six years before taking a mandatory two-year break from the group, while faculty-elected representatives may only serve for two years before the two-year break...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/shared-governance/2025/08/22/tex-boards-abolish-faculty-senates-create.

New University Librarian

From the Bruin: Former UCLA director of library special collections Athena Jackson will be the next Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian, UCLA announced Thursday. Jackson will start in the role March 1, succeeding Virginia Steel – who had occupied the position since 2013, according to an announcement from Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt. Jackson previously served as director of library special collections at UCLA beginning in 2019 before becoming the dean of libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair at the University of Houston in 2021. 

Jackson was also previously the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and head of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State University, a special collections librarian at the University of Miami, the coordinator of the North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project and an archivist at the North Carolina State Archives.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Houston and received a Master of Science in library and information science from the University of North Texas. Jackson is also involved in scholarship dialogues through member organizations of the University of Houston such as the Association of Research Libraries, the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Texas Digital Library...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2024/01/25/ucla-appoints-athena-jackson-as-norman-and-armena-powell-university-librarian.